My Childhood Friend And The New Term

According to my childhood friend, there’s apparently a name for it: “that huge-shock reveal where you come back from summer break to find the girl you’re into has completely transformed on you.”

“If Hina or Sumire ever turned out like that, I’d keel over from the shock!”

That’s what my childhood friend, Sakura Ayuri, was saying just the other day. And as for Ayuri herself…

◆◆◆

“Ugh, so hot…”

Today, for once, I was walking the route to school all by myself.

According to Ayu:

“At least on day one, I wanna beat everyone to the classroom I haven’t seen in ages and soak up that whole wistful, emotional vibe.”

Or so she says. Getting up early on the first day for no good reason was the last thing I wanted, so I hadn’t tagged along.

“I just wanna get to the classroom and cool off already…”

Summer break was over, but of course the world outside was still at the very peak of summer. Freak weather at work again, maybe? It felt a shade too hot to chalk up to the usual late-summer lingering.

◆◆◆

— Yammer-yammer!

…Huh, isn’t it kind of noisy?

I climbed the stairs I hadn’t set foot on in a month and change and started down the long-unused hallway, and the closer I got to my classroom, the more that swell of voices grew into something like a commotion.

…Yep, called it. It’s coming from our room.

Sure enough, once I was standing right in front of the door, the jumble of voices came through even louder. It didn’t sound like Ayu was singing or anything, so what on earth was going on…

“Hinaaa!”
“Huh—Hina?! Did something happen?!”

The voice snapped something in me, and before I knew it I’d flung the door open, never mind that I’d meant to hang back and watch a little longer.

The sliding door rattled open with that clatter I hadn’t heard in a month, and what filled my vision was…

“Hinaaa! Pull it together! What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?!”
“U-uungh…”
“…The heck are you two doing.”

Hina lay sprawled on the floor like she’d keeled over, and Ayu, up on her knees, was cradling her upper half. That part alone I could’ve let slide; it’s the kind of stock tableau you only ever see in fiction, common enough as those go.

No, the problem was Ayu’s getup. How do I put this… in a word… she’d gone full gyaru.

Her neckline sat a little lower than usual, she’d put in a few scrunchies of a sort she never normally wore, and even her hair was done differently. Her face carried makeup I’d never seen on her, and when I looked closer she’d done her nails too, a whole heap of little touches I never usually caught on her, piled on all at once.

Not that I’m any authority on current fashion, but… this was probably gyaru. Though I couldn’t quite shake the sense it ran a little dated.

“Ah, Gin! It’s bad! Hina walked into the classroom and just keeled over…! Think it’s heatstroke?!”
“Nah… I dunno about that.”
“Heh heh heh… She’ll be fine, Ayuri.”
“Sumire! Fine, how?! Hina looks like she’s in agony over here!?”

Sumire patted Ayu on the shoulder and gave her a gentle, reassuring smile. …Going by the upward curl at the corners of her mouth, though, this girl was thoroughly enjoying herself.

“Today the timing just happened to line up and I walked to school with Hina. She was keeping up with her water properly, so… I don’t think it’s heatstroke.”
“Huh?! Then why…”
“That would be because she got knocked senseless by your getup, Ayuri. You’ve really made yourself over, haven’t you.”
“For real?! I just wanted to give everyone a little surprise, so I gave it a shot… does it suit me?”
“It suits you, it suits you.”

Once we’d banded together to get Hina settled into a chair, Ayu did a little twirl to show herself off. Looking closer, her skirt had crept a touch shorter than usual too. Given how little she was holding back about it, she’d surely got something-or-other on underneath that wouldn’t matter even if it showed.

“…Wait, that’s the reason you got up early?”
“What I told you wasn’t a lie, but this was the real goal! I asked Nitta and Hotaru’s friends all kinds of stuff, and I got Hotaru to help me with the makeup!”

For the record, Nitta is a somewhat gyaru-ish girl in our class. When I glanced over at her, she shot me a thumbs-up.

Not that a thumbs-up aimed at me was any help.

“…Ayu.”
“Gin, what do you think? Does it suit me? Let’s take a picture togeth—”
“Let’s get you changed, yeah?”
“…Huh?”

She’d consulted the girls who’d blazed the trail before her, and with even Hotaru pitching in, the dress code was probably fine with it… probably. Still, now that it had blown up into a commotion this size, staying in that getup would only earn her a chewing-out from a teacher, and it’d be bad for Hina on more fronts than one.

“No way! It went over way better with everyone than I expected, so I’m rolling with this today!”
“What are you, a kid?! …Wait, went over well?”
“Yep! The whole class ate it up! I made everyone promise not to post it online and got pictures with them too! Look!”

The phone she shoved at me showed a whole row of photos lined up, starting with Hotaru and someone who looked like a friend of hers, then Nitta and the other girls from class. The Ayu in every shot looked like she was having a blast; she’d clearly taken a ton of them.

“Hmm…”
“Here, Gin, you get one too! Snap—!”
“Ah, sure.”
“…Okay, I’ll shoot it over to you right now so I don’t forget~”
“Ah, thanks.”

…Even knowing full well it was Ayu, somehow… she’d changed so much that the wrongness of it hit hard, and I caught myself going all stiff and stilted about the whole thing. That’s the honest truth.

“Sumire, let’s get one too! Say cheeese!”
“Cheese!”

…What a good sport, Sumire.

After that Ayu just kept snapping photos and getting snapped, Sumire and me included. Brimming with energy from the very first day of the new term, this one.

And a few minutes into all that, Hina came to.

“Ngh, uuuhh… Ayu’s gone delinquent…”
“Ah, Hina’s awake! You okay? Hina, wanna head to the nurse’s office?”
“Wh—maybe don’t…”
“Uuh… Ayu’s calling me…”

Ayu came bouncing over to the just-revived Hina in her usual hoppy way. I had nothing but a bad feeling about it.

“You okay? Hina?”
“Ayu…? …Huh? When did I even wind up in the classr—…”

Yeah, no dice after all.

Hina went stiff all over again at the sight of the Ayu in front of her. She blinked hard, rubbed at her eyes, and then…

“It wasn’t a dream!!”

…she wailed, and pitched face-first onto the floor all over again.

“Oh, come on…”
“Ayu, let’s get you changed.”
“B-but I still haven’t gotten my picture with Hina—”
“No, at this rate that’s never happening.”
“Aww~… but it’d be such a waste…”
“KENGOO—!! ARE YOU OKAY—?! THE WOUND’S GOTTA BE DEEP, BUT WAKE UUUP—!!”

“…”
“…”

“…Let’s get you changed.”
“…Okay.”

So this is what they mean by sheer pandemonium.

The new term had barely started, and on a full-on midsummer day still thick with the heat of summer, no less. What a rowdy class this was.